June 2, 2021 John 5: 42
39 ‘You search the scriptures because you think
that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. 40Yet you refuse to come to me to have
life. 41I do not accept glory from human beings. 42But I know that you do not have the love of God
in you. 43I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not
accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44How can you believe when you accept glory from
one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is
God? 45Do not
think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom
you have set your hope. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about
me. 47But if
you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?’
6After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea
of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs
that he was doing for the sick. 3Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his
disciples. 4Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.
It seems a presumptuous thing for Jesus to say to the Leadership,
that they do not have the love of God in them.
Not exactly the way to win friends and influence people. It is not that this comes out of
nowhere. Jesus has been laying out for
them his own relationship to the Father, one that they are not willing to
accept. And yet Jesus does attract them
in droves. Whether they are fascinated
or challenged or a combination of both seems to be what drives them. The challenge will take over as they come to
a point where they will conspire against his life.
It may seem like a minor thing, but Jesus does not deny
their belief in God, only their active life within God-through Christ. Because Jesus is not seeking to establish a
new religion. He is seeking to fulfill
the promises made in the Jewish faith to this point. The importance of understanding that is what
connects and divides the Christian faith from the Jewish faith to this day.
There are Jewish congregations that accept Jesus as
presented in the gospel. But to my
understanding, they do not generally call themselves “Christian”. The history of Christianity toward Judaism is
powerfully violent and bloody. The title
that I have heard used it “Messianic Jews”, Jews who have accepted Jesus as the
Messiah.
The connection that my brain has made is that the
Leadership to whom Jesus is speaking does not understand the new paradigm of
religion that Jesus is bringing in, a new paradigm that continues to stand
outside Judaism to this day. I grew up
not understanding why our faiths had not come together in Christ. History made that abundantly clear.
And yet to read on in the New Testament, especially in
Paul’s letter to the Romans, where, by his time, there is an acknowledged break
between the followers of Jesus and the Jewish faith that found its leadership
in Jerusalem, there is a tension present.
This tension runs against a prevailing ‘all or nothing’ of modern
theology. All-believe in Jesus, or
nothing-condemned to hell. There are
Christian leaders who will pronounce that those of the Jewish faith, as with
everyone else who does not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, are condemned to
hell.
Why spend time ruminating on things like this? What if I said that this verse gave us
permission, in Jesus name, to oppress and ostracize those of the Jewish faith? But wait, that takes this verse hugely out of
context. Exactly. But that is the power of faith, or rather, ‘faith’.
Matters of faith touch deep in the human soul, eternal
life and death and so on, judgement and the love and acceptance of God,
justification from our sins and for our very existence. Forgiveness as a matter of mercy becomes a
prerequisite in the absolute right and the absolute wrong.
I am of a point of view that if I get it wrong, and do
not condemn someone to hell who deserves to be, that the Lord can be merciful about
things. But what I have so much more
trouble stomaching is a Christian point of view that feels it can take the
judgement power of God, even unto death itself, and carry out such judgement on
the world in the sure and certain knowledge of their own salvation and forgiveness
in Jesus if they get it wrong.
It also reminds me of the power of Jesus’ words, for sin
and for salvation. More later.
Peace, Pastor Peter
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